


Total Eclipse

by atamascolily



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: New Republic Era - All Media Types
Genre: Alien Cultural Differences, Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Improbable coincidences, Inspired By Tumblr, POV Han Solo, solar eclipse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-29 07:08:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13921959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atamascolily/pseuds/atamascolily
Summary: Luke gets Han and himself out of a jam using the Force. It's not the solution Han was expecting.





	Total Eclipse

**Author's Note:**

> I was inspired to write this after reading a number of "Skywalkers as eldritch horrors moving the heavens and earth" fics recently on tumblr. It turns out Luke doesn't necessarily need to be a powerful alien god-being disguised as an ordinary mortal in order to do some of that stuff.

"Well, this is unpleasant," said Han, as he stole a quick look over his shoulder at the mob of angry Njidki behind him and Luke. "How did I let Her Worship talk me into negotiating a cease-fire with these people? One that seems to have spectacularly failed, I might add." 

They had a good hundred-meter lead at the moment, but it was quickly evaporating as their pursuers were hitting their stride and gaining speed. With five major limbs, several dozen pseudolimbs and a sluggish metabolism, Njidki were not as quick on the draw as human beings, but their sharp teeth and claws marked them as predators that only the foolhardy would trifle with. Han had spent a lifetime building a reputation as the man who'd do crazy things for the right price, but the prospects of a pitched battle against heavily armed opponents with only his brother-in-law for backup wasn't his idea of a good time. 

With the two of them still several klicks away from where they'd crash-landed the _Millennium Falcon_ and all the local populace up in arms after them, it was not their finest moment. Unless they could think of something clever--and fast--things were going to get ugly. Especially since explaining that they were diplomatic representatives from the New Republic come to resolve a system-wide dispute hadn't worked out so well the first time. 

"Oh, come on," said Luke, jogging along beside Han with a serenity that belied the seriousness of the situation. "We've been through a lot worse than this. Remember the Death Star? This is just a misunderstanding. Threepio said before we left Coruscant that arriving on the day of a solar eclipse might upset them, and, well, apparently he was right--" 

"Okay, fine," said Han, cutting him off before he could rub the salt in any further. He hated more than anything when that fussy protocol droid was right. They probably should have brought him along, but the Njidki could speak passable Basic when they wanted to and Leia tolerated Threepio better than Han did. It was just as well--that droid couldn't run worth a damn and would have gotten them all caught in short order once the shit hit the fan. "Why don't you use your Jedi skills and _do_ something about it, then?" 

He'd meant the suggestion sarcastically--he never passed up the chance to tease Luke, and since his friend had somehow become the heir of a bizarre and mysterious quasi-religious tradition, these opportunities came up much less than they used to.

But to Han's surprise, Luke nodded. "All right, I will," he said, fumbling in his pocket for him comlink. "Artoo, are you with me?" 

An affirmative, cheery whistle through the comlink confirmed that Artoo was ready for anything. The droid, who had little patience with negotiating, had stayed behind on the _Falcon_ to help Chewie with the latest equipment breakdown that had rendered the ship at least temporarily non-functional. 

"Great. Tell me how long we have until the eclipse begins," Luke said into the comm. 

There was a pause as Artoo ran the calculations, and then some muffled beeping as he relayed the answer to Luke. Han could never figure out what those astromechs were saying half the time, and preferred it that way to yammerers like Threepio who were a lot harder to ignore. 

Whatever the message, it meant something to Luke. "Oh, an hour, huh?" He glanced up at the sky, then back at the crowd of Njidki on their tail. "Guess we'll have to speed this up a bit." 

"What the _hell_ \--" Han started to say, but Luke had stopped where he was, carefully stowing the comlink in his belt pouch before staring up at the sky with that blank, neutral expression that Han had come to associate with weird Jedi shit. "Kid, are you _crazy--_ " 

"Shh." Luke reached out a hand - the black-gloved artificial one - and stretched it out towards the sun, which was glowing yellow-white almost directly above them. There were several moons, one of which, a dull brownish blob rounded with pockmarks, was rapidly approaching the sun and indirectly responsible for this mess. It was almost local noon, and not a cloud in the sky. Had the circumstances not been so dire, Han might have even called it a nice day. 

(As it was, he was just going to be thankful if they could make it out of here intact. He hoped it didn't necessitate shooting anybody and triggering an intergalactic incident as a result. The paperwork alone would be horrendous and Leia would never let him live it down.) 

Luke closed his eyes, as if he were focusing on something far away, something Han couldn't see with both of his open. His breathing slowed. "Size matters not," he whispered, a non sequitur if there ever was one. 

Han opened his mouth to say that in his personal experience, size actually mattered quite a bit, and that Luke couldn't possibly be doing what Han _thought_ he was doing--

And then the shadow fell upon them as the moon covered the sun and everything was in darkness. It happened so fast, yet he could see it coming, seconds before the sunlight vanished and the shadow fell over the surface of the world like an ocean wave against the shore.

Han had seen eclipses before - they were frightfully common in space, but there were so many stars that it never really made an impact out in the void.The effect was much more dramatic when he was close enough to one star in particular to notice its sudden absence. A few seconds ago, there had been daylight. Now, it was night. 

The transformation was as startling as it was abrupt. He felt the air cooling on his skin, his sweat pooling rather than evaporating. Unfamiliar constellations gleamed above him. The sun was gone, replaced by a black sphere surrounded by a ghostly halo of white fire. He'd learned at the Academy that stars had a corona, a stream of plasma extending for kilometers outside their main body, but he'd never seen one without special equipment before. 

The effect on their pursuers was immediate. They stumbled to a halt, stalked eyes staring up at the sky, clearly startled--

\--and with keening screams, they turned and fled back the way that they had come, towards the miserable excuse for a planetary capital they'd chased the two shipwrecked New Republic envoys out of just a few minutes before. 

As if that were the signal he was waiting for, Luke sighed and unclenched his hand, gently lowering it until it hung at his side. As he did so, the shadow moved away and the light returned, just as it had departed--in a wave--as the moon drifted out of reach of the sun. The stars faded out of sight, and the air was noticeably warmer. Some of the local wildlife even began to sing, as if it were dawn. 

Luke opened his eyes. He wasn't even breathing hard. 

"Kid," said Han, trying not to let his awe and confusion show on his face, "you didn't--" 

_\--move a fucking moon with the power of your mind, did you?_

He thought about how blase he'd been, watching Luke train with his lightsaber under old man Kenobi's watchful eye, that first day on the _Falcon_ together. How confident he'd been that all this Force business was pure nonsense, a total scam. 

_"Kid, I've flown from one side of this galaxy to the other. I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen anything to make me believe there's one all-powerful force controlling everything._ "

Well, he certainly couldn't say that anymore. 

Jedi. Those fucking _Jedi_. 

"I just gave it a little nudge," Luke said, with that inscrutable half-smile he wore when he knew he'd done something impressive, but didn't feel the need to brag about it. "It seemed easier than picking a fight with those Njidki. Maybe now that the eclipse is over, and they've had a chance to calm down, they'll be in a better mood to negotiate. Shall we?" 

There had only been a few times in his colorful, unpredictable and eventful career as a smuggler-pilot-general turned volunteer diplomat that Han Solo had been rendered well and truly speechless. Meeting Chewbacca for the first time had done it. So had the knowledge of Leia's kinship with Luke --and later, the truth of their parentage. 

This was definitely one of those times.


End file.
